On the Mark: Implementing campaign commitments

After months of late night phone calls, e-mails from people I don't know and a mailbox full of colorful flyers with little substance, the election is finally over. Good riddance.

As the fallout from the election starts to sink in, those who won are now faced with either doing what they said they would do to get elected, or finding someone else to blame their failure on. The biggest burden will fall on the highest office and our new governor, Rick Scott, has promised a lot. His seven-point plan to success: 7 steps, 700,000 jobs, and 7 years, expresses his intention to get our economy back on the right path but the details needed to implement his ideas is what voters need to see now.

Each one of his seven steps includes a series of issues that he believes will help accomplish the ultimate goal of a better business climate, thus creating more jobs. Most of the issues are nice slogans voters like to hear during a campaign, but provide little detail. As we might expect, the devil will be in the details.

One of his seven steps is "Regulatory Reform." In this state, with layer upon layer of duplicative regulations and level upon level of bureaucrats to enforce them, reforming regulations could be a huge incentive to reopening our economy and reducing our government bloat. Yet there needs to be some careful consideration as to which layers and levels are removed as some agencies are more specialized in their field of expertise than others. The Department of Community Affairs, as example, is an agency that could benefit the public by absorbing more responsibility in bringing other agencies under their umbrella and centralizing land regulatory rules all in one location. With what little land use protection there is, Scott needs to be careful not to eliminate oversight to the degree that we revert back to rampant and uncontrolled growth.

Soon-to-be Gov. Scott has stated that he wants to "Review state development regulations and expedite permits for job-creating businesses, such as Enterprise Florida targeted industries." And "Make economic development programs more flexible to allow our existing businesses to expand here in their own unique ways. I will invest in the state Innovation Fund that brought Scripps and Burnham research labs to Florida, developing high tech clusters with high-paying jobs." And "Nurture new cutting-edge technology clusters — such as the biotechnology cluster in Orlando that, by conservative figures, creates over $7 in economic returns from every $1 invested — a 7:1 ROI."

Now all of this sounds like he is on the right track but the details of the implementation of these plans, and others he has put forth, are what will determine the benefit or damage to the public. His support of Enterprise Florida and the state Innovation Fund could mean that he intends to continue to incentivize private business with state funding for new technology. If such funding is linked to local matching funds, as it many times is, what then happens to the taxpayer's burden within those areas? Would Gov. Scott insist that any local matching tax funding be provided only with a voter approval or would the areas affected be forced to come up with the matching funding without valid citizen involvement?

Rightfully so, the economy has changed the way growth and business is looked upon for a vast majority of citizens. In the not-too-distant past, business and development were the cash cows that provided local and state governments with windfalls in the form of a variety of exactions. Not so anymore. Instead we have seen the pendulum swing in the opposite direction and whatever incentives can be provided to entice more growth and business is encouraged. Financial penalties such as impact fees and other regulatory exactions are being reduced or removed. For the most part these are needed improvements at this time.

Scott's seventh solution is to encourage more businesses to move here by eliminating Florida's corporate income tax over a seven-year period. If this can be done without adding more burdens to residents then it could be a viable idea but with all the other changes and reductions he intends to make that seems highly unfeasible.

In addition, Scott has stated his intention to reduce property taxes by an initial 1 mill and then "Phase in another 1 mill reduction over the next 7 years." Eliminating corporate tax and reducing property taxes while still maintaining the services, incentives and protections we currently have in Florida will be a far greater challenge than making speeches and printing campaign brochures.

We need to be careful not to blindly implement hasty reactions to our economic woes. Instead we must consider whether or not residents will be adequately protected and maintain the lifestyle that generates the desire for businesses and their employees to move here in the first place. The best for Florida would be for a successful and balanced Gov. Scott.